Those Darn Fratboys
by AStormIsBrewing
Summary: See, I really didn’t wear the right boots to solve a mystery of this magnitude. For Twilight Rose2's contest.
1. I Would Do Anything For Love

**I do not own.**

Wow, what a contest. I'm so doing this. I still have homework I have to do, but it is so happening. TwilightRose2 has a mystery contest. And It's HAPPENING.

There was also a Scooby-Doo marathon on while I was writing this, which also inspired me to finish this. I haven't seen Scooby Doo in so long it's killing me.In order of appearance:

Acton Campbell — Aang — 19

Scott 'Scottie' 'Scotland' 'McScotty' 'Snoozles' Lynn — Sokka — 22

Zacharias Marshall — Zuko — 22

Talia Bradley — Toph — 19

Katie Lynn — Katara — 21

Hadley Griffith — Haru — 22

* * *

**I Would Do Anything for Love**

**(but I won't do that)**

_We're in luck, and like, it's all bad. — Scooby Doo_

* * *

_I feel like Macgyver._ Of course, Acton didn't really know who Macgyver was, just that Scott and Zach talked about him every once in a while, always in conjunction with the words 'Hardcore,' 'lady killer,' and 'Colonel O'Neill.'

He tensed his arms, trying to get a little let in the ropes that were burning into his wrists. Of course, there was none; whoever tied him up must have been a freakin' navy SEAL, what with the breathing through a straw and giving blood transfusions in the jungle, with a piece of bamboo. This was the climax of the plot, the time right before the final showdown between the hero and villain.

Acton was now convinced he was not that hero, being stuck in a janitorial closet while some psycho ex-Navy SEAL was hunting down his friends and planning to . . . do something.

Acton was the security guard. He was supposed to stop stuff like this from happening. He couldn't well do that when he didn't know what was going on.

"Hey, Talia?"

"Don't even say it, Twinkletoes."

"I wasn't going to. Do you know where they took Scott?"

"Well, seeing as I'm blind—"

"Ok, ok, I'm sorry. I just wanted to ask, do you have any idea what's going on?"

"And Mr. I'm-Working-My-Way-Through-CSI-School doesn't?"

Acton shifted a little, turning his head at an awkward angle toward's the blind girl. "I'm just saying, I've gone over all the facts, and none of it makes any sense—"

* * *

"Please, Acton? Please? It's Halloween."

"Yes, what better way to spend our holiday than vandalizing my place of work."

"We're not going to vandalize it! You know us better than that. We would never do anything to get you in trouble with your boss." Katie could put up a convincing argument, even if she didn't have to. Acton trusted her, completely and utterly. It was in his nature to be trusting and non-violent, which made him ill-suited to a position as the single security guard at the historical mall in downtown Mansfield. But he did need the money.

And yes, he was compelled to say yes to Katie. He had lost his mind to her a long time ago. "Fine. But I tell you, there are no ghosts. I've been working there for months and I haven't seen anything. Personally, I think the people who sneak in looking for a scare only see what they want to see."

"Maybe you just haven't been looking in the right places," Katie suggested. "There's a lot of fuss surrounding ghosts, and not everyone knows what to look for."

"Or maybe Twinkletoes is just seeing what he wants to see," Talia said, her pale green eyes gazing in a general direction towards the other speakers. "Maybe he's too chicken to look for ghosts."

"I'm not afraid of spirits—"

"Bock, bock, bock, BA-GOCK!" the blind girl shouted, flapping her arms and running around in a circle. _At least she's aware of her surroundings_. . . . "No wonder you don't eat chicken, Twinkletoes. The last thing a pansy like you would want is to be compared to Hannibal Lector for eating your own kind."

"I already said you could come. Is there any reason for the barbs?"

"Builds character, Twinkletoes."

"I'll take your word for it."

* * *

Too say that Acton was having second thoughts about allowing his friends to join him on the night shift would be like saying Oktoberfest was only a little bit German. Scott and Zach were tagging along, because that's just what they did. Barely seniors in college and more immature than four year olds, ghost hunting on Halloween was the only way to keep them from downing their weight in alcohol at every frat party from Phi Beta Kappa to Delta Zeta.

But no, maybe that wasn't a surprise. They would get to live up to their heros on the SciFi channel by rescuing the damsels in distress from evil B-movie villains.

The sun was sinking slowly, lengthening shadows in the parking lot by inches every few minutes. The lights were coming on; he had told them to be punctual, but they were college students. Why would they be? But Katie's green Neon pulled around to the curb, followed closely by a Trans Am that Zach held more dear to his heart than . . . well, it was more dear to him than cheese whiz was to Scott, which was saying something.

_Breathe, stupid, breathe._ _You're not going to lose your job over something like this._

Now if only he could actually believe that.

* * *

Talia was used to not seeing a lot of things, but this was the worst thing she hadn't seen in a long time. "So when are we going to see some ghosts?" she whined, tracing a pattern on the tiles.

According to Scott, the lights were indeed off, except for a single candle Katie had set in the middle of their group, circled up in the main square of the mall. But darkness was darkness, incongruent and unrelenting. All Katie's spirit mumbo-jumbo was starting to get annoying. She was ready to be scared out of her pants. Or, at least, hear Snoozles do that. Mindless terror from guys was always fun.

The gang shifted and shuffled around, clearly bored already. Stupid boys. And girl. Talia's heightened senses were hard at work picking apart the rustle of their clothes from the soft hum of the generator to the whisper of — _wait a minute!_

"Did you guys hear that?!"

Talia could hear the intake of breath and the rustle of clothes as they turned towards her, drowning out the muffled tap of retreating footsteps. "Hear what, Tal?" Scott asked, reclining again.

"Footsteps," Zach answered this time. He had gotten to his feet, and his feet made barely discernable whispers of their own as he turned in a slow circle.

"This your mad ninja skills again?"

"Can it, Scottie."

"Aye aye, Captain. I'll just get me bagpipes and —"

"Seriously, Scott," Katie said, standing too. Now everyone was on their feet except Snoozles. Talia strained her ears, trying to locate the sound again, but it was too far lost.

Then several things happened at once, that Talia didn't at all understand. Katie screamed and bumped into Zach(she might have actually latched onto him, judging from his strangled grunt), Scott screamed several expletives, and Acton began talking into his radio receiver.

"Homebase, this is F-1, do you copy? Over." Static. "Home base, do you copy? Possible breaking in at the old Main Shopping center, over." Only static. "Well, that was weird."

"Will someone tell me what's going on?!"

"The lights just came on!" Katie shouted.

Talia rolled her sightless eyes. "Gee, wonder how I missed that one."

"Very funny, Tal."

"Thank you, I'm here 'til Thursday."

Scott, meanwhile, was secure in his almost spiteful glee. "See? Told you it wasn't a ghost. Science prevails again over stupid voodoo."

"It's not voodoo. Ghosts have been known to turn on lights, Scott."

"Acton didn't think it was a ghost, and he is the expert in these things."

Katie rolled her eyes and would have replied, but Acton stepped up first. "It doesn't matter if it was a ghost or not. I still need to find out what happened, and it would probably be a good idea if we combed the mall for trespassers."

That was not a good idea to Katie. "What, you mean like split up? What if he has a gun?!"

"You losing the faith so quickly, sis?"

"Shut it, Scott. I'm just being realistic."

"About time. Hey, why don't you give Zach some oxygen? Looks like he's turning blue." Scott sighed. "Anyways, Acton has a sidearm and whoever has Zach in their group will be fine; he's a ninja."

"And whoever's group you're in will be screwed."

"Hey!"

Talia shook her head. Brothers and sisters never stopped. She turned towards the direction she had last heard Acton's voice. "Looks like we've got ourselves a mystery."

* * *

Technicolor never gets old, and legends never die. Gotta love Scooby Doo.

**Please Review!**


	2. Help!

**I do not own.**

Apparently I've just made history. Tropical Storm Fay made a record five landfalls. It just rained on us, too. It was a nice rain, the kind that isn't too wet or too cold, and it cools you down just enough.

* * *

****

Help!

__

"Wanna spit in my hand? We're Scully and Moulder." — Bones

* * *

"Ok, guys, let's split up and look for clues."

Katie crossed her arms. "You guys can just go on without me."

Scott stopped and turned around. "What do you want? A Scooby-Snack?"

"There is nothing that could possibly make me go into a dark mall alone at night."

"Oh, wait, that's right, you wouldn't get it. You're too cool for cartoons."

"And having fun," Talia muttered as she grabbed Acton's shoulder. "Make with the splitting up and clue-finding, people!"

"Way to keep the element of surprise, Tal." None the less, Scott slunk off after them.

* * *

Of course, Talia's eyes didn't function enough for her to be able to tell that the mall was, in fact, quite bright, due to the recent antics of the whatever it was they were looking for. Light was a sort of surreal thing for her, and she could only know it by comparison with her other senses.

When people described the atmosphere of light, they usually described it as warm. Talia could understand that. That sort of soft warmth usually meant safe, like a blanket or the sun in a canyon or the feeling she got in her core when she was happy — really happy, like floating. Light also meant not weighing so much. If light weighted anything at all, it would probably have crushed the life out of her ancestors as far back as shellfish, seeing as how it was everywhere and started from so far away.

Talia didn't know what everyone liked so much about light. Whenever they described something, they usually did so in a way that she couldn't understand — colors, shades, patterns. This was how it was so easy for them to let the world pass by around them. They only saw one part of it. Talia could experience four.

Taste was a funny one — the most intimate of the four. Her first boyfriend had been a vegetarian — he tasted like soy-milk and peanut butter. When she was a baby, she had put everything in her mouth. That was how all babies interacted with the world, but most of their taste-buds decayed by the time they were Talia's age.

Just like people and things had tastes, they had smells, too, and not all of them were repulsive. The brail version of the Twilight series had gone into that in detail, but Tal was hard-pressed to find a guy that smelled like a forest or Christmas. Her friends had their smells, as familiar to her as sight was too them.

Scott smelled sort of salty, like the beef jerky he always ate and carried with him and snuck into movies and stores and all sorts of events. Katie was salty, too, but not in the meaty way. She was fresh, like the sea. Zach smelled like Teriyaki chicken and burgers and spontaneous combustion and engine grease, which he never seemed able to wash out. Acton smelled like laundry. It was a good smell.

Sound was just as varied as sight, with different nuances and emotions that no one took the time to notice. You could tell if a person was angry or upset or hiding something from his or her voice. Sound could do anything.

But touch? Touch was a second sight. It could communicate things like people said that the eyes and sight could, and wasn't bound by two-dimensional parameters. Color was replaced by texture, and shapes swirled beneath her fingers and toes. Touch told her about Scott's peeling sunburn and Katie's constant moisturizer use. Touch told her that Acton was bald, and that Zach _hated_ anyone touching his face.

_. . . I don't see what the big deal is . . . !_

_. . . You don't_ see _at all. . . ._

That was the only time that Zach had ever been mean — really, intentionally mean. After that, back when they were still stupid kids in high school, he had avoided them for weeks.

* * *

"You said 'I don't see.'"

"Look, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking—"

"I wasn't either."

There was a slight pause as the older teenager mulled it over. "What?"

"I can't see. So I need you to show me why it's such a big deal."

* * *

A/N I speed-posted only part of this chapter because I was suddenly hit by several family events at once that will drag me away from a computer until the contest is well-done. I just want at least a partial chance at winning it, so I'm posting this part before I leave. I'm trying to keep the shipping ambiguous for now.

**Please Review!**


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